Hobbyist creates Pokémon-inspired charging station

Hobbyist Spencer Kern was inspired by the recent Pokémon Go craze when he came up with the idea for his latest project.

Kern, the designer who created a custom Minecraft PC last year in honor of the Windows 10 release, has just built a Pokémon Center Charging Station.

“After spending hours running around my local park with a few hundred people, I knew this was a special moment in gaming history. The sense of community that popped up around the game inspired me to start up a quick project to provide a fun “water cooler” style social hub for people playing the game. To do this I thought it would be fun to re-create a Pokémon Center from the main games and use it as a charging station for trainers to hang out and heal their power drained phones,” wrote Kern on his project website.

Kern took a Yeti 400 solar generator that was normally used for camping and constructed a cool shell for it. The shell included a built-in USB hub capable of powering about 10 to 12 cell phones at once. For the purpose of time, Kern opted to make most of the case out of wood and added some 3D-printed accents.

How he did it

Kern started with a 3D model for testing purposes and then built his design around the dimensions of common wood stock. After cutting and gluing the wood aspect of the project, he decided to 3D print some small custom parts like a latch and cradle, which were designed to be functional, as well as some decorative components. He then added the Pokemon-style painting to the hub, glued all of the components inside, and fastened the USB hub inside, then voilà — he had himself a charging station.

“A quick weekend trip to a downtown park provided a great test for the Pokémon center. There were tons of trainers running around and everyone seemed to have a great time hanging out while charging up,” he concluded in his post.

For a full list of materials and project steps, visit Kern’s website.